Google Webmaster Reports in Google Analytics

When Google Webmaster Tools was introduced, its purpose was distinctive from other notable tools such as Google Analytics, provided by Google for free. It helps webmasters diagnose accessibility problems, view search engine activity statistics and set preferences such as preferred domain or crawl rates.

As Google Analytics and Google Webmasters started to introduce more tools, it has become evident that certain functions and reports are better utilized without switching over to another account. For example, while Google Analytics tells me which keyword referred traffic into my client’s website, it doesn’t tell me what is the click-through percentage is the site getting relative to number of times the website appears on search engine results. The latter can be answered by reports generated by Google Webmaster tools. Although this tool has been with Google Webmaster tools for quite some time, it was not introduced until 2007, at the time when Google Analytics and its keyword referral reports was roughly a year and half years old.

Such link between two Google applications is evident on others. Google AdWords allows you to link to Google Analytics with certain conditions (you need administrator access to accomplish the task) while being logged in at a certain Google Account allows you to access all accounts related to your logged identity.

Switching from one account to another was particularly a hassle as a consultant where, occasionally, I need to login to multiple Google Accounts at the same time. The introduction of multiple Google Account login doesn’t eliminate the problem.

Enter Google’s announcement that we can review Google Webmaster tool data without switching from Google Analytics account. With the update, Google adds a new field called “Search Engine Optimization“.

But before you can access this report you need to log in to your Google Webmaster Account and go to the account whose reports you want to access in Google Analytics. On the right side you’ll find options under “Manage Site” (see image on the left). Select Google Analytics property to select which Analytics account you wish to associate with Webmaster account.

When the link is successful, you can then head to Google Analytics report under Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimization. You need to use the new version to see this report.

Basically the report will display three major items:

Queries: Impressions, clicks, position, and click-through rate (CTR) information for the top 1,000 daily queries (The one we see at Google Webmaster Tools)Landing Pages: Impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily landing pagesGeographical Summary: impressions, clicks, and CTR by country

Having this report will give us idea how is our site visibility performing. For example, we can determine which pages have high number of impressions yet their low visibility limits the number of clicks they gets. We can then set priorities on which pages to optimize for search engine visibility.